Bell
The bell is a device placed on many walls at Gunn that plays a 659.255 Hz sine wave tone for 4 seconds and follows the bell schedule, including alternate schedules. Timothy Herchen once recorded the bell.
The new clocks are capable of displaying 4 main screens: a date/time screen, a welcome screen, a fire alarm screen, and an "all clear" screen. Of these 4 screens, only the first screen has been seen on clocks at Gunn. When the clock boots, it shows a fifth screen with scrolling text reading "AtlasIED IPX IP-SDMF" and contains some information such as the firmware version (1.6.0 until it was recently updated to 1.6.5), the MAC address, and the IP address. The MAC address of a speaker can also be found by reading a barcode label found under outdoor speakers or on the left face of indoor speakers. The text follows the format AtlasIED IPX IP-SDMF 1.6.5 AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF 0.0.0.0.
When the new bell rings, scrolling text appears on the screen reading "Bell Schedule." This is likely placeholder text.
Installation of new clocks
At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, the clocks were replaced with AtlasIED IPX IP-SDMF and IP-SDMF-72 speaker clocks. The 3 types of old clock-speaker hybrids were each replaced with different types of mounting hardware.
The clocks with an overlapping speaker and clock were replaced by the surface mounting hardware, since the shapes match perfectly, and there are no extra components on the wall that require maintenance. Note that the E building clocks use slant mounting hardware, even though the E building previously used overlapping clock-speaker combination units. This may mean they have IP-SDMF-72 clocks.
The units with gray boxes containing separate areas for the clock and speaker had the analog clock removed and the slant mounting hardware placed on top of the clock. The slant mounting hardware may have been chosen for compatibility with the IP-SDMF-72 units in the N building due to wiring space for the old speakers behind the clock, but some slant boxes were also installed behind IP-SDMF units. The clock-speaker board was left behind because the speaker has hardware in the wall that would be exposed if the gray box was removed.
The digital clocks in the P building and S building were replaced by the flush model, as the old clocks were also flush in the wall, and they were the exact same size.
After the new clocks were installed, the IPX bell was enabled on September 9, playing a 1000Hz square wave tone for 4 seconds. This was replaced with the sine wave sound on September 20.
Shutdowns and malfunctions
On 9/27/2021 and 9/30/2021 (Monday and Thursday), the bell unexpectedly rang at 12:40, followed by a PA announcement at 12:45 saying the bell "that just rang" should be ignored. Additionally, on 9/27, there was a second unexpected bell at 12:55, with no announcement.
On 5/10/2022, the bell rang at 8:53AM instead of 8:52AM, then did not ring again until 12:20PM. Announcements were made on the PA system, and a number of "Test 1 2 3 test" announcements were made. The bell worked fine on 5/11, but on 5/12, it did not ring at either 8:52 or 9:00. A PA announcement was made around 9:02, followed by the bell ringing, and it worked after that.
The Valcom bells were shut off near the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. On August 30, 2022, the Valcom bells were re-enabled after some "1 2 test 1 2 3" announcements, causing the Valcom bells to play from the IP-SDMF-72 speakers. However, because only the E building and N building received IP-SDMF-72 speakers, the rest of the school did not hear this bell.
On 9/7/2022, the clock screens turned off around 10:05 AM, and showed a stuck pixel in the middle shortly after. After this, scrolling text displayed, reading "AtlasIED IPX SDMF" including the firmware version, v1.6.0. This is outdated from the latest firmware, firmware 1.6.5. A similar reboot occurred on 9/9/2022, possibly to enable the IP bell. The most recent reboot was on 9/16/2022.
Gallery
Supported clock screens
Old Valcom bell
